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Status update 2018-03-25

Status updates from MythoLogic Interactive about the game progress.
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Gurt
Lead Programmer
Lead Programmer
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2016 3:22 pm
Title: Lead programmer
Started SFD: Made it!
Location: Sweden
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Age: 34

Status update 2018-03-25

Post by Gurt » Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:20 pm

The past weeks we have been continued the work on campaigns and bots.

I have primarily been working on the path grid system the past weeks to improve it and also be able to set different bot behaviors (specified through parameters) using the ScriptAPI.

I want to bring up something else as well, the melee system in SFD and our journey with it:

The melee for SFD started 6-7+ years ago when we started to design the next iteration of Superfighters. We knew that we didn't want the random aspect from the first game and wanted some sort of rock-paper-scissor kind of system. So we initially thought up a system of three components directly matching the rock-paper-scissor idea: You could attack, block or wait. Attack would beat waiting, Block would counter attacking and wait would counter blocking - allowing you to follow up with an attack that could not be blocked.

In earlier days of SFD it was best to be attacked first and then follow up with counters on that (imagine that!). After iterations of play testing and reading feedback we changed some things, reworked other things. All changes has been to adress what we consider exploitable gameplay or unintended meta play we didn't think suited SFD or to prevent certain overpowered tactics.

Dolphin diving in the very early days making you virtually immune against projectile weapons resulted in a cooldown to dive and roll.

Shotgun jump-kicking resulted in a forced kneeling mechanic.

We then continued iterations on the melee system, tweaking cooldowns, fixing bugs, correcting animation timings and other things to make it work better.

Then the idea of grabbing was born and showcased. Then it was cancelled as we didn't think it was needed. Then it was un-cancelled as we were convinced it was needed as more feedback poured in. See https://mythologicinteractiveforums.com ... f=19&t=556 for that story. The grab has now been around for one and a half years!

Recently a new topic about the grab has been discussed back and forth. Some have even voiced about removing the grab or simply remaking the whole melee system in SFD. We don't think there's anything wrong with the grab itself but in certain situations you could stun-lock players in stupid ways which we will adress by tweaking the recovery roll mechanic. Just like the forced kneeling mechanic is an answer to the shotgun jump-kicking the recovery roll changes is an answer to overly frustrating (and stupid) stun-locking+grabbing melee combos. See https://mythologicinteractiveforums.com ... f=9&t=2460 for more details.

Throughout the development process of the melee system in SFD different players have had different opinions in basically every aspect of the system. It seems like everyone (for the most part) is fine with the shooting mechanic in SFD but have widely different opinions when it comes to the melee and how the melee could/should be different.
You can only do so much when shooting with a weapon so it's easier to predict which may be why it's working so good. When it comes to melee it's always this mind-game you have to play with your opponent: What is he gonna do next? Should I block or attack? Maybe jumping is the better approach? Run back and try to use my ranged weapon? Will he chase me if I try to escape? Or should I just stand and slap my opponent in the face? Melee just have so many more options available which may be why there're so many opinions about it, for good and bad.

We do read all your suggestions but it's impossible for us include everything. Some ideas are too vaguely explained or we simply don't agree that your idea is the way SFD should be going. We need to find some sort of middle ground that we still think suits SFD and that we want to play. Like our motto: "Our goal is simply to make inspired games that we want to play." and I'm happy with how the melee system has turned out and can't imagine SFD without grabs today. I don't think it's perfect for SFD but I have no other complete fully 5+ years tested melee systems for SFD to try out either - we have run out of them. :roll:

From out point of view as developers the melee system, shooting system, movement system and any other systems for SFD is more or less final. We can't afford going back to the drawing board redoing major parts of the game now 6+ years of development - we have passed the Alpha and Beta phase. We're in the process of creating campaigns and AI (which is a big TODO) for the release and we want to finish the game before we grow old and die - still working on it in our spare time.

We still want all your feedback even if it's too late to incorporate any bigger ideas into the release of the game. We will continue releasing updates after the game's release as long as we feel inspired so perhaps any ideas being posted today may make it into post-launch.
14 x
Gurt

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